Category: uplifter

It seems like the meeting is winding down. There are ostensibly 45 more minutes left, but everyone left a little bit ago so I think it is effectively over. It was a really good meeting, a number of people of various levels of experience and question. People were helped, questions asked and answered about blogs and vlogs and podcasts, recommendations put forth, conversations had and connections made. A number of Charlestonian techies met each other and were introduced, some who knew each other but didn’t know they shared these interests. In short, the theory worked in practice, god love it. I’d have to go look at the sign in sheet, but it seems like 20 or 30 people came through at one point or another. That’s actually a better turnout than I was expecting. I call Uplifter Charleston a wild success.

Thanks to Dan and Janet for organizing it. It was a great afternoon.

I’m at the Uplifter meeting in Charleston, although I think I’m preceding it by some. My stuff is mostly still in the car and I just realized that I didn’t bring my CVS camcorder cable. Damn it!

Dan just showed up, so the nerding begins. I’ll try to flickr some photos throughout the day.

Don’t forget, if you are in south coastal South Carolina or north coastal Georgia, there will be an Uplifter meeting this Saturday in Charleston. I’m planning on being there, so if you can (even if you aren’t close but willing to drive) please come and talk to me. We’re there to teach, learn and increase the edification quotient all the way around. I’m planning on bringing my soldering iron and some stuff to build another CVS camcorder cable right there in the coffee shop.

Also, Uplifter Seattle is that same day. I like that both Carolina meetings have been simultaneous with other ones around the country. I just find that cool.

The meetings were Saturday. We had 5 people in South Carolina, and there were 6 people in Minnesota. While that’s not huge, both groups had fun and got some stuff done. They did more citizen media stuff in Minnesota, but a lady in SC also got help with her laptop from a guy who happens to work as a security/spyware specialist. The theory works! Bring what you have, teach what you know, learn what you need indeed.

The next Carolina meeting will be April in Charleston. I learned a few lessons about where to focus resources from this attempt, and maybe we’ll get things working a little better for the next shot. It’s not a bad start. Thanks to everyone that came out, to all who sent their support, and everyone that helped on the wiki and other places. Onward to the future!

Crossposted to the Uplifter Blog.

I need help, and whatever anyone can give is good. Because of the very high workload I had the last two weeks, I didn’t get done a lot of the things I wanted to do for promoting the Carolina Uplifter meeting. I have fliers ready to go which I will hang at Coastal Carolina University and also put at Horry-Georgetown Technical if they will let me. I sent the press release to the various newspapers in the immediate area, as well as the South Carolina public radio system and some local TV stations. That isn’t nearly as much as I wanted, but it’s what we got.

Here is the first paragraph of the press release I put out:

The Uplifter Carolina Society will be meeting on March 25th from 1 PM to 5 PM in Conway SC at Port City Java located at 300 Elm Street. This group is devoted to helping interested non-geeks become active with their technology. This gathering will include people to teach how to blog, podcast, and videoblog. If you have wanted to participate in these arenas but weren’t sure how to get started, come to the meeting and learn in a relaxed environment with friendly people.

If you are within driving distance of Conway SC and want to come, you are highly welcome. If you have friends or relatives or colleagues that are in this area and you think might be interested, please forward this information along to them. If you are in the Carolinas and want to sign up to organize a future event in your area, please do it. If you can, please blog about this event and let people know about it and if you know less blogged up people that might benefit from it, take the effort to let them know. The ultimate goal of this movement is to bring new people into this world rather than talk to the already wired, so any help bridging into outreach is highly appreciated.

More information about the movement as a whole is available at the wiki. Don’t forget, the Minneapolis area is having their own meeting at almost the same time.

Over on the Uplifter Wiki there has been a good bit of activity recently as we try to get the PR materials in shape for sending around. March 25th, there will be meetings in both Conway SC and Minneapolis MN. I like that, it emphasizes that this isn’t an event that happens once in a place but is an ongoing process happening in many places over time.

If you want to participate but aren’t located in either of these areas, you can feel free to cruise around the wiki and help write the Uplifter Manifesto and other documents associated with the philosophy, or help come up with the logo (currently the area of greatest thrash). You can also organize your own meeting in your own area. The train is rolling, hop on board and let’s lift each other up.

The basic framework of the Uplifter stuff exists. There is now a wiki and a group blog. Anyone that is interested should feel free to contribute to either or both. The one thing about both is that they require registration to participate. I thought about this and think that for this particular deal, it makes sense that contributors shouldn’t be anonymous. Let me know if anyone has any different thinking on that.

For now, I remain as busy as the recent baseline so I set up the framework but probably won’t be contributing heavily as of yet. If you want to join the blog as a contributor, let me know and we’ll get that set up. This is all pretty fluid and I’m letting the movement discover its own identity as we go, so things are pretty general. Like any good garage band, we’ll tune up as we play. Onward, uplifters!